The next thing for me

I've found my next big project. When I decided to have children, I knew that it would come up. But it is just so big and overwhelming, and I feel so small and inadequate. Who am I? But I saw this video on the Julia Roy blog and it really got me thinking....



It got me thinking that even if the public schools were delivering on the basics, they still aren't going to be sufficient.

I moved from Seattle to Bainbridge in large part because I wasn't happy with the public school situation in Seattle. I didn't want to have to work in order to send my kids to private schools, and I wasn't happy with the crazy life I saw families leading. I wanted the option to stay home with my kids and work when I want to on projects that are interesting and fulfilling. And I wanted to slow down our lives and focus on the little things that matter. Bainbridge and Belleview had the highest scoring public school systems in the area. Little did I know that these schools also teach to the WASL so that they can maintain the high scores, or that the class sizes were growing significantly each year, or that even in a district of highly-affluent well-educated citizens the schools wouldn't be able to gather the funding they need to fix leaky pipes or replace a school that has outlived its usefulness and may be a safety hazard. Of course most of this information is second-hand from other moms with older children or from what I read in the local paper. But I really do not want to have to home school my children - I would be a terrible teacher. I am not patient enough and it just seems like so much work. And I don't feel like that is what I'm being called to do.

So, I was listening to a conversation with Scott Oki, a former Microsoft exec turned philanthropist, on NPR about a month ago that sparked my interest. He was offering some ideas on how to improve public schools that sounded simple and achievable. He wrote a book entitled "Outrageous Learning: An Education Manifesto" that I ordered and received in the mail last week. I cracked it open this morning and am looking forward to this read. I would love to introduce it to our book club and start a larger conversation.

The problem still feels huge and I have no idea where to start, but I do know that I really need to get on top of this issue and figure out how to plug in. I don't think it is OK for us to opt out of the public school system because we can afford to do so. All of our kids deserve a chance at the best educational opportunities we can create. Really. Not just talking about it, but really making it happen.